NAISMITH BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME ANNOUNCES PRESEASON WATCH LIST FOR THE 2026 MEN’S AND WOMEN’S SHOOTING GUARD OF THE YEAR AWARDS

– Fan Voting Begins Friday, October 31 –

SPRINGFIELD, MASS. — The Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame introduced the 20 watch-list candidates for the 2026 Jerry West Award and, in partnership with the Girls’s Basketball Coaches Affiliation (WBCA), the 20 watch-list candidates for the 2026 Ann Meyers Drysdale Award.

The annual Jerry West Award, named after the late Class of 1980 Corridor of Famer and 1959 NCAA Last 4 Most Precious Participant, celebrates its twelfth yr by highlighting the highest capturing guards in Division I males’s school basketball. 

The Ann Meyers Drysdale Award, in its ninth yr, honors the highest capturing guard in girls’s NCAA Division I school basketball. It’s named after the Class of 1993 Corridor of Famer, the primary participant, no matter gender, to be chosen for an All-America Workforce in 4 consecutive school seasons.

*Gamers can play their manner onto and off the listing at any level within the 2025-26 season.

Followers are inspired to take part in Fan Voting in every of the three rounds beginning on Friday, October 31. In late January, the watch listing of 20 gamers for the 2026 Jerry West and Ann Meyers Drysdale Awards might be narrowed to 10, after which in late February, to only 5. In March, the 5 finalists might be offered to West’s household, Meyers Drysdale, and the Corridor of Fame’s choice committees, the place winners might be chosen. The Choice Committees for the Jerry West and Ann Meyers Drysdale Awards are composed of high males’s and girls’s school basketball personnel, together with media members, head coaches, sports activities data administrators, and Corridor of Famers.

The winner of the 2026 West and Meyers Drysdale Awards might be offered on a to-be-determined date, together with the opposite 4 members of the Males’s and Girls’s Beginning 5. Further awards being offered embody the Bob Cousy and Nancy Lieberman Awards (Level Guard), Julius Erving and Cheryl Miller Awards (Small Ahead), Karl Malone and Katrina McClain Awards (Energy Ahead), and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Lisa Leslie Awards (Heart). 

Earlier winners of the Jerry West Award are Chaz Lanier, Tennessee (2025), RJ Davis, North Carolina (2024), Marcus Sasser, Houston (2023), Johnny Davis, Wisconsin (2022), Chris Duarte, Oregon (2021), Myles Powell, Seton Corridor (2020), RJ Barrett, Duke (2019), Carsen Edwards, Purdue (2018), Malik Monk, Kentucky (2017), Buddy Hield, Oklahoma (2016), and D’Angelo Russell, Ohio State (2015).

Earlier winners of the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award are JuJu Watkins, USC (2024-25), Zia Cooke, South Carolina (2023), Christyn Williams, UConn (2022), Ashley Owusu, Maryland (2021), Aari McDonald, Arizona (2020),  Asia Durr, Louisville (2019), and Victoria Vivians, Mississippi State (2018).

For extra data on the 2025 Jerry West and Ann Meyers Drysdale Awards and the newest updates, go to hoophallawards.com and observe @hoophallu, #WestAward, and #MeyersDrysdaleAward on X and Instagram.

Concerning the WBCA: 

Based in 1981, the Girls’s Basketball Coaches Affiliation is the skilled affiliation for coaches of ladies’s and women’ basketball in any respect ranges of competitors. The WBCA provides academic assets that coaches want to assist make themselves higher leaders, academics and mentors to their gamers; gives alternatives for coaches to attach with friends within the career; serves because the unifying voice of a various group of coaches to these organizations that management the sport; and celebrates these coaches, gamers and different people who excel annually and contribute to the development of the game. For extra data, go to us on-line: WBCA.org, observe @wbca1981 or name 1-770-279-8027.

Concerning the Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame 

Situated in Springfield, Massachusetts, the town the place basketball was born, the Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame is an impartial nonprofit 501(c)(3) group devoted to selling, preserving, and celebrating the sport of basketball at each degree – women and men, newbie {and professional} gamers, coaches and contributors, each domestically and internationally. The Corridor of Fame museum is dwelling to greater than 475 inductees and over 40,000 sq. ft of basketball historical past. Practically 200,000 folks go to the Corridor of Fame museum annually to study concerning the recreation, expertise the interactive displays and check their abilities on the Jerry Colangelo “Court docket of Desires.” Greatest recognized for its annual marquee Enshrinement Ceremony honoring the sport’s elite, the Corridor of Fame additionally operates over 150 highschool and collegiate competitions yearly all through the nation and overseas. For extra data on the Basketball Corridor of Fame group, its museum, and occasions, go to hoophall.com and observe @hoophallu.